Logic of a 4-Year-Old

Three days a week, I care for my 4-year-old granddaughter, Avery, and we sometimes play games. Yesterday we played BINGO. She loves to spin the wheel, and getting her to look at the little balls teaches her how to recognize numbers and match them to numbers on her card.

The last time we played, I won. Yesterday, as Avery’s card filled up and mine sat nearly empty, I laughed when I looked at my 3 numbers and compared my card to Avery’s, whose card was filled with so many numbers, she was one number away from winning two BINGOs. 

Knowing how games go sometimes, I laughed, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I won after all, even though your card is nearly full?” She looked at me with one of those looks that told me she very clearly knew she was going to win and that what I had just said was preposterous. Responding with an emphatic, “No!” I realized that my winning at that point would not have been funny to her – at all. Fortunately she won. 

We ate lunch and Avery went to the bathroom. We usually have a quiet (not nap) time after lunch when we grab pillows and blankets, recline on the couch, and watch an afternoon movie, but I soon learned that Avery had other plans. 

“I think I peed my pants,” she said. I told her that she probably didn’t because she had just gone potty. She insisted that she had peed her pants and that she had to take a bath. So I set up a bubble bath for her and neatly folded her clothes, so they wouldn’t wrinkle. 

As I grabbed her underpants, so I could wash them, I noticed something. Her underpants weren’t even a little bit wet, so I immediately realized I had been roped into giving her a bath that she didn’t need (I learned later that she had had a bath just before she came over). As she sat in the tub, surrounded by bubbles, happily playing with bath toys, I held up her panties and said, “Avery, your pants aren’t even a little bit wet.” 

“I know.”

“So why did you tell me they were wet?”

No answer.

She didn’t need to answer. I knew why she lied about them being wet, so I told her that the next time she wanted to take a bath, she just had to tell me. She didn’t have to lie about having wet pants. “OK?”

“OK.”

And, good grandma that I am, I wrapped her up in a towel and took out my blow dryer to warm her up. Maybe I make bath time too comfortable for her.